Avam, a company controlled by the Daly family, intends to build the six-storey project on a site that was sold last year for an estimated €1.5m.

In 2008, an application for a seven-storey office block on the site was rejected by the council.At the time, the site was owned by Merit Holdings, a company controlled by Northern Ireland developer PJ Conway and his family.

Avam has applied to build a 2,440 sq m office block on the Cuffe Street site, which is close to St Stephen's Green. The development will also include 50 bicycle spaces at ground level.

The planned development comes amid a continuing shortage of prime office space in the capital. A report earlier this month from estate agents Savills said that a quarter, or one million sq m, of all office space in Dublin has changed hands since 2013.

In the central business district, 38pc of office space has changed ownership in that period.

That occurred as Nama and lenders put assets up for sale.

Prime office values have also risen sharply in the past few years. A prime office block in Dublin's IFSC that was bought three years by a fund controlled by Credit Suisse has been valued at €70m - twice the price it was sold for in 2013 by a group of up to 78 private investors that had been assembled by Warren Private.

One of the directors of Avam, Paul Daly, is also a director of a firm called Fenshore, which owns the early house Windjammer pub on Townsend Street. The pub is owned by the Daly family.